Okwudiri Straightman Nwali

From the thief who pocket dialled the POLICE to the (clothed!) robber who tried to hide from cops in a nudist colony: 12 of the unluckiest criminals of all time

Criminality. It’s seldom the wisest of career choices; at some point you’re bound to get caught. And this becomes particularly true when luck doesn’t seem to be on your side...

Just look at the robber who accidentally ‘pocket-dialled’ police on his mobile, describing his crime in intricate detail. Or the man who confessed to murder because he thought he was dying of a heart attack, only to survive. And there was the robber who tried to hide from police in a nudist colony and was caught because he was the only person wearing clothes.

Unlike Sky 1’s upcoming drama Lucky Man - in which James Nesbitt stars as a down-on-his-luck murder squad officer whose fortune suddenly and mysteriously changes – those three really couldn’t catch a break. And they weren’t the only ones...

James Nesbitt stars as murder squad officer DI Harry Clayton in Lucky Man, Sky1's new thriller

Here are 12 of the unluckiest criminals of all time, whose tales of ‘doh!’ should be enough to keep you on the straight and narrow forever.

One super-sharp thief attempted to hide from the law in a nudest camp.... while still fully clothed

1. The world’s worst bike theft

A thief in San Francisco picked the wrong bicycle to steal when he targeted Bill Kiriakis’ new $7,000 Stromer ST2 E-Bike, a set of wheels fitted with cutting edge GPS-tracking technology. Just two hours after reporting the bike stolen, Kiriakis was reunited with it and the suspect was arrested.

2. Pocket-dialling palaver

We’ve all accidentally ‘butt-dialled’ someone inappropriate from our mobile at some point, but it doesn’t get much more inappropriate than calling the police while planning a burglary. Scott Robert Esser, 42, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, did exactly that in September while discussing his planned robbery in New Jersey, accidentally dialling 911 from his pocket and alerting the police. When a robbery was committed in the area, police traced the call and caught up with Esser, recovering the stolen goods.

3. Caught NOT in the buff

When Milton J. Hodges, 20, hijacked a golf buggy at knifepoint at Cypress Cove Nudist Resort & Spa in 2012 while on the run for a separate crime, he was easy to spot by police officers because he was the only person wearing clothes. 

4. Foiled by the getaway... donkey

When three Colombian thieves looted a convenience store in Juan de Acosta in 2013, stealing rum, oil, rice, tinned tuna and sardines, they thought they’d got away with it. But then the donkey they had used to cart away their stolen goods started causing a noisy ruckus, braying and alerting nearby police who arrested them and returned the goods to the store. 

A raucous donkey foiled three Colombian thieves' attempt to make a getaway after they looted a store 

5. Caught catching some zeds

Liverpudlian burglar Carl Jackson, of Beechwood, Merseyside, broke into a house in Upton and then celebrated having gained entry by drinking a can of beer and popping a couple of sleeping pills, only to be found having a nap by the householder Jacqueline Magee, who then called the police. 

6. Breakdown bozos

Three unlucky car thieves in Virginia had not one, but all three, of the cars they stole breakdown during the getaway 

If you’re going to steal a car, make sure you don’t steal one that’s on its last legs. And if you’re going to steal three cars, make sure they’re not all on their last legs. That’s what happened in Newport, Virginia, in July, when four car thieves broke into Goode’s Automotive and stole three used cars. All of the cars were discovered abandoned, because they’d all broken down during the getaway. 

7. The eyes have it

An arsonist who caused over £1m of damage during the 2011 London riots was caught and jailed for eight years thanks to one very telling feature: detectives looking at CCTV footage recognised Andrew Burls, then 23, from Peckham thanks to his crossed eyes, which were visible above his bandana. 

8. Confessions of a (not-so) dying man

Halfway through a heart attack in which he thought he was going to die, James Washington decided to make a 2009 deathbed confession of the murder of Joyce Goodener, a crime committed some 14 years earlier. Unfortunately for Washington, he survived and was later found guilty of Goodener’s murder, despite trying to take back his confession. 

9. Doughnut-robbing doughnuts

Two men who robbed a doughnut shop in Dallas, Texas, in October had clearly never heard the joke about policemen loving doughnuts. As they fled the scene with two cash registers they were greeted by an off-duty police officer parked outside, who managed to apprehend one of the criminals. 

In a second twist of bad luck, the one who got away was the one holding the empty cash register, not the full one. It was found abandoned in a nearby field later. 

If you're going to attempt to rob a shop, it's probably best NOT to target the one with police in it (file pic)

10. I asked for YOUR ID, not mine

A bouncer in Iowa City was very surprised to see his own face on the driving licence that was shown to him by an underage man outside his bar in 2012. The very driving licence, in fact, that was stolen from him (along with the rest of his wallet) only a couple of months earlier... 

One suspected robber was arrested after he returned to the victim’s house to ask her out on a date.... (file pic)

One bright spark was impersonating a police officer when he pulled over, yes, a real cop (file pic)

11. Flaming bad luck

Craig Allen Aylesworth, 52, was attempting to set his neighbour’s trailer on fire in Biltho, Florida, in 2009, by hurling a Molotov cocktail into his yard.

Unfortunately for him, the winds suddenly changed, spinning the Molotov cocktail he had thrown straight back into his own trailer, engulfing the whole thing in flames.

So he was arrested and taken to jail – which was actually pretty lucky, considering he was left homeless.

Authorities said they believed alcohol had been involved. 

12. Hello, Officer?

Before you impersonate a police officer, double check that the person to whom you’re doing the impersonation isn’t actually a real-life genuine police officer. 

Maryland resident Anthony Kenneth Mastrogiovanni, then 29, of Crofton, made this mistake in 2012 when he pulled over an actual off-duty cop on the highway, accused him of speeding, and was promptly arrested.